“You’re not dead yet from your addiction,” O’Neill told two women and a man as he accepted them into the county’s drug court program. “It’s pretty hard to live with an addiction like all of you have had, and you’re not dead, because that’s where addictions go, long-term incarceration or death.

“I’m not sugarcoating it. That’s just it. Each of you can name friends you know, people that you’ve used with, people that you know that have died from this disease,” O’Neill said.

The Montgomery County Drug Court Program, established in April 2006 and funded by the county, is an innovative approach to disposing of drug-fueled criminal offenses by offering participants intensive help to fight their addictions. The program encourages them to change their lifestyles and offers an opportunity to earn a dismissal of the charges against them or to have their court supervision terminated early.

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Participation in the program, which is voluntary, is at least 15 months long and may last as long as three years. The length of the program depends on how well an offender succeeds in dealing with the addiction and becoming a productive, crime-free citizen. The program typically has 130 participants at any given time.

“What you’re choosing is going to be the hardest thing you’ve done,” said O’Neill, who has been presiding over drug court on Wednesdays and Fridays for seven years. “This is about really changing your life. “

The treatment court requires participants to honestly acknowledge their addictions, take responsibility for their lives and understand the consequences of their actions.

“And it’s wonderful to watch lives transform. It’s amazing,” O’Neill said. “It’s amazing to watch what the power of recovery can be if you bring it to your life.”

Team approach is strict, has tough rules

The drug court program uses the cooperative team approach and court review sessions of a treatment court, rather than traditional adversarial proceedings of criminal court. The goal is to have a program and environment that is both supportive and forces offenders to confront their addictions. It is designed to encourage the participant’s movement away from an addictive lifestyle but swiftly imposes consequences when the participant returns to addictive behaviors.

Under the program, the drug court treatment team — consisting of probation officers, treatment provider representatives, the judge, a defense lawyer and a prosecutor — meets weekly to discuss an offender’s progress and to develop individual strategies for each addict.

Montgomery County Assistant Public Defender Hindi Kranzel, who has represented participants since the program’s inception, called the specialized court “a 24/7 operation.”

“Everyone is in constant contact because this is about addressing the needs of the individual as soon as they come up. Everybody always knows what’s happening and everybody gets the swiftest help if they need it,” Kranzel said. “Participants have daily contact with adult probation and that’s an amazing source of strength for participants. There are no official hours in drug court. It never ends.”

Assistant District Attorney Cara McMenamin has been the prosecutorial liaison in drug court since July.

“People have some real needs that have to be addressed and I think this drug court program does that quite well. It’s very, very strict. They are very heavily supervised,” McMenamin said.

No. 1 priority: Clean and sober

Drug court has several goals, one to get the addict sober and the other is to prevent drug-fueled crimes against society.

“From the prosecutor’s point of view it’s that we are reducing the amount of crime against the law-abiding citizens of Montgomery County and by having so much oversight we’re also enabling people to become law-abiding people in our county,” McMenamin said.

Breaking the cycle of addiction can make roads safer and prevent retail thefts and residential and business break-ins which are committed so addicts can get cash for drugs.

“A large, large number of economic crimes can be prevented by treating people and helping them find their way to sobriety,” McMenamin said.

“... Inpatient treatment is where we start,” said O’Neill. Traditionally, those dealing with addictions have spent limited time in rehab center inpatient programs, perhaps 15-to-30 day stints depending on how much time their insurance coverage allowed. But under the drug court program, funds are available to fill the financial gap meaning there is no limitation on how long an addict can stay in inpatient treatment.

“The studies show that you need extended and intensive inpatient treatment in order to even start on that road to recovery. Participants in our program are given that opportunity,” Kranzel said.

After inpatient treatment at a rehab center, a halfway house helps prepare for independent living, the judge said. Then it’s on to outpatient treatment.

“You’re never going to recover from this disease unless you are constantly working on it,” O’Neill told the new participants. “Priority number one, not family, not job, not relationship. Your disease and the treatment is the number one priority.”

As a condition of the program, offenders must enroll in a 12-step program, such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous, and work through the steps with a sponsor.

“But if you don’t bring it into your life, I can tell you long-term in this program will be difficult and I can almost guarantee you when you get out of this program, you’ll pick up. Almost guarantee it,” O’Neill warned.

O’Neill said the “hardest part” running the program is seeing people who “change their lives,” graduate and relapse after getting out because they stopped going to meetings.

Participants are under the supervision of, and regularly report to, a drug court probation officer, which initially occurs twice per week. Offenders must comply with all conditions of treatment and frequent, random drug testing.

“The accountability is our probation officers. They’re specialists. They’re in your life. They’ll know what you are doing,” O’Neill warned, adding probation officers will know if offenders don’t show for a urine screen or dilute their specimen.

Drug testing and the mirror of truth

Urine testing is a main tool for the recovery program.

“Catching you clean is what we like to say. It’s the main thing we got,” O’Neill said.

Additionally, offenders must maintain employment, job training or placement through Montgomery County Workforce Investment Board or other productive daily activity, such as school or community service, “anything to keep you actively engaged and away from the routines and the habits of using,” the judge said.

“Relationships with people in drug court, absolutely prohibited. There is no allowance of sexual or romantic relationship with any other person in the program,” O’Neill explained, adding it has happened and led to fragile people relapsing. “This isn’t a dating service. The relationships that you build in your life you should not meet and come together in weakness.”

Offenders must appear at review sessions, which may be as often as once a week, where they and their probation officers and therapists report to the judge.

“Drug court is unique. It’s not court as you know it. It’s basically weekly reviews of your life and where you are in recovery,” O’Neill explained. “We’re watching people ... watching them change their lives before my very eyes.”

During a recent status conference, O’Neill addressed the progress of 25 offenders in the program. He learned if they’d been giving clean urines, going to treatment, working and staying away from those they shouldn’t be around.

Each offender stood at a podium, looking directly into a floor-length mirror positioned between them and O’Neill.

“We like to call it the mirror of truth,” O’Neill said. “Every time you’re lying, just remember who you’re lying to yourself.”

Acknowledging progress with praise

Gift cards and praise, things not normally used in a courtroom, are offered as participants inch toward recovery.

“You talk like someone who is in recovery,” O’Neill told one woman, who marked 10 months of sobriety in the program, as he descended from the bench, shook her hand, and gave her a gift card, as the woman’s peers and supporters applauded her success. “You’re doing really, really great.”

Kranzel said the judge’s personal interaction “makes a huge difference” in the lives of participants.

“I think it’s a big deal. We mark every monthly milestone because it’s a big deal,” O’Neill said. “We watch your transformation in this program and we support it and applaud it and do everything we can to encourage it and make it happen. But if not, we’re there immediately with the net to catch you, refocus you and get you back in there.”

“This is not some ‘Alice in Wonderland’ thing where you go to the land of recovery and you have nothing to worry about,” O’Neill added. “You have to do all the work. That’s why I said it’s the hardest thing to do, harder than becoming addicted.”

O’Neill also hands out brief jail stints, writing assignments or community service for those who slip up.

One woman admitted she did not report for a random urinalysis when she was summoned.

“I feel like I let you down,” she told O’Neill, who ordered she be held in jail for 24 hours for the infraction.

Sheriff’s deputies, handcuffs at the ready, took a Norristown woman into custody when the judge, based on police reports, suspected she was associating with known drug criminals.

“I don’t have it in me to start over again,” the woman tearfully pleaded. “This is not fair to me. I’m not dealing anything. I had somebody negative come into my life and played me.”

“You were living a lie, telling the drug court one thing,” bellowed O’Neill.

As the woman was hauled off to jail indefinitely, her parents, who had supported her recovery efforts, wept. Still, the woman’s distraught mother thanked the judge for drug court.

“We’re physically, emotionally, spiritually spent and sick,” the mother said to the judge. “Sometimes I wish she was dead, to put an end to the demons.”

Graduation day

After about a year of success in the program, participants give a presentation to the drug court team and other participants.

“It can be a speech, it can be the story of their addiction, it can be a painting or it can be a song. It has been an interpretative dance, to discuss how they’ve progressed in the program, what they’ve gained from the extended period of their sobriety,” Kranzel said. “It’s amazing to see how much insight they have gained, how much confidence they have gained and how their lives have truly changed because they’re in their recovery.”

But the major milestone is graduation.

“We lent you our will. We are a court of second chances. A lot of you took second chances with your lives,” O’Neill passionately addressed several graduates during the program’s 42nd graduation ceremony.

Before handing out certificates of completion, the judge solemnly recalled the life stories of three onetime participants who, after being discharged or graduating from the program, died of overdoses during their “downward struggle,” one who “died in his mother’s basement with a needle in his arm.” The judge propped photos of the three on the edge of his bench as he talked.

“The loss of life from this disease is getting overwhelming for me,” O’Neill said.

About 200 people, friends, family and fellow participants, some carrying colorful balloons that said “Congrats,” packed the courtroom as the judge reviewed the lives of the graduates – recalling their ups and downs while battling their addictions.

Kranzel said graduation “is just the beginning” when “the hard stuff really starts.”

The judge showed each of the graduates a photo that was snapped when they entered the program, photos depicting faces ravaged by drug addiction. Now appearing healthy and joyful, some of the graduates gasped as they were reminded of the shell of the people they once were.

“These are the dead eyes of addiction,” the judge said, referring to one of the arrest photos. “Dead eyes, lost souls.”

Calling one young man who spent two years in the program “an incredible example of the sacrifice of recovery,” the judge recalled the man overdosed six times during his lifetime and “was a high risk for death” when he entered the program.

“He never ever quit. You made incredible, incredible accomplishments. I’m proud of you man,” said O’Neill, who came down from the bench and hugged the young graduate in the middle of the courtroom as emotional spectators erupted with thunderous applause.

A petite, young woman who spent 27 months in the program smiled brightly and occasionally wiped away tears that welled in her eyes as the judge proudly reviewed her success. The judge recalled one of the woman’s early statements in the program. She said, “I didn’t care if I lived or died. I’m strung out. I’m a pathetic version of myself.”

But the judge said after a lot of hard work including long-term, inpatient treatment, the woman “is a beautiful girl, a beautiful spirit.”

“You meant every word of wanting to change your life. You are not that lost little girl anymore. You are a woman in full. You have a great life ahead of you,” the judge said as he hugged the young woman who wore a sequined bow in her hair.

Another young woman who spent 15 months in the program while battling a heroin addiction was once described by her probation officer as a woman “on her way to a dark grave,” the judge said.

“There was no life there. It looked like addiction had snuffed it out,” the judge told the woman now beaming with pride about her accomplishment. “But you brought incredible determination. You were a good woman inflicted with a terrible disease.”

The judge posed for pictures with the graduates and their relatives and friends.

“Keep that recovery burning bright. You have created a new life where it’s easier for you not to use drugs,” the judge said.”I’m handing you off to yourselves now.”